John L. Cooper, the lead singer of popular Christian rock band Skillet, issued heartfelt advice to Christian influencers who have recently renounced their Christian faith in public.

Two well-known Christian influencers announced recently that they had left their Christian faith.

In July, Joshua Harris, author of the popular Christian book, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” and former pastor, announced that he was no longer a Christian and proclaimed that he was now a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ_community.

Hillsong United worship leader Marty Sampson made a similar announcement last week, insisting that he is “genuinely losing his faith,” but that the very idea did not bother him.

Yesterday, Skillet’s John Cooper wrote a lengthy Facebook post saying, “We must STOP making worship leaders and thought leaders or influencers or cool people or ‘relevant’ people the most influential people in Christendom.” The post was shared more than 29,000 times.

He also wrote, ‘Most shocking imo, as these influencers disavow their faith, they always end their statements with their ‘new insight/new truth; that is basically a regurgitation of Jesus’s words?! It’s truly bizarre and ironic. They’ll say ‘I’m disavowing my faith but remember, love people, be generous, forgive others.’ Ummm, why?”

Cooper continued, “Is it any wonder that some of our disavowed Christian leaders are letting go of the absolute truth of the Bible and subsequently their lives are falling apart? Further and further they are sinking in the sea all the while shouting ‘now I’ve found the truth! Follow me!!’ Brothers and sisters in the faith all around the world, pastors, teachers, worship leaders, influencers…I implore you, please please in your search for relevancy for the gospel, let us NOT find creative ways to shape Gods word into the image of our culture by stifling inconvenient truths.”

Though Sampson is never mentioned in the post, many people who shared the post drew a connection between Cooper’s words and Sampson’s announcement.

While other Christian leaders have remained quiet on these issues, Cooper has boldly spoken out what most people could not articulate very well but were thinking and represented the faith in an outstanding manner as most have called it.